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Harrison Wheelworks

Harrison Wheelworks is my handspun yarn shop. I dye my own wools with acid wash fast dyes and spin them on my Majacraft Rose wheel into yarn. I sell my yarns at local craft fairs when possible, and all year long on at Harrison Wheelworks, my etsy.com shop. If you are in the Boston area and would like to know when I’ll be at a local event, feel free to contact me at harrisonwheelworks at gmail and I’ll add you to the notification list.

There isn’t enough space on etsy to explain what goes into a yarn,
and as a naturally curious person, I assume everyone wants to know
how it goes. Or at least have some pretty colorful photos to look
at. So what goes into your yarns? I shall show you. First, white
wool gets dyed. I’ll try to document this process next time I do
it, but just assume it goes smoothly, your wool doesn’t felt, and
you end up with something pretty like this: Next you
decide how many plies (how many strands will be put together into
your final one. Two gives a nice yarn, 3 plies a round yarn, single
ply a loftier more malebrigo or lopi type yarn, 4 plies and up
you’re just showing off.) and split that yarn into that number of
segments. Each segment gets split up a bunch more times to separate
the color blocks more and also to make it easier to spin. That pile
of fluff looks like this. (And there are a ton of different ways to
prepare the wool. This is just the one I use most often) You
then proceed to pour yourself a pot of tea and spin it up, each ply
gets it’s own bobbin. So you do this: and
you end up with this:
Notice that the strand wound around the bobbin changes color
randomly. You can try and line them all up for a bolder striping
when knit up, or in any number of ways to get varying degrees of
stripes or gentle blending from one color to the next. Next you ply
these. Which means twisting them together in the opposite direction
to wind them together. (The wheel is spun clockwise to spin each
single and then counter clockwise to twist them together). And then
you have this:
The yarn is then washed, measured, labeled, and goes to live with
all it’s cousins waiting for someone like you to come take it home!
They live over here. Go
see them, pick one out to take home with you :) You’re welcome to
contact me for custom spinning or larger amounts, I’ll do my best
to accomodate as time allows.